Parental alienation involves the systematic brainwashing, poisoning and manipulation of children with the sole purpose of destroying a loving and warm relationship they once shared with a parent. My story involves this form of child abuse & exploring the bias favouring a mother in the social ecosystem around Family Law.

I have met and heard the tragic stories of many parents. PA is a function, by and large, of a custodial ex-partner, although some alienation can start while the couple is still together.

This blog is a story of experiences and observations of dysfunctional Family Law (FLAW), an arena pitting parent against parent, with children as the prize. Due to the gender bias in Family Law, that I have observed, this Blog has evolved from a focus solely on PA to one of the broader Family/Children's Rights area and the impact of Feminist mythology on Canadian Jurisprudence and the Divorce Industry.

Saturday, May 26, 2012

The article shows thinking in the UK is still going on in terms of a child is deserving of two fit parents. I'm not optimistic this will bear fruit but at least it's still under discussion. Dads are shut out for ideological reasons not the best interest of the child and studies clearly show the negative impacts on children.

This is very important as Canada still looks to mother England, rightly or wrongly, for guidance with it's own laws.MJM

A host of social problems are made worse by the dismal way that 'contact disputes' are handled by the courts.

Every year, thousands of couples make their way through the courts, trying to resolve disputes about how to share the upbringing of their children. It has become a crushingly expensive way of creating single-parent families. Nearly half the parents (fathers, usually) who go to law in the hope of increasing the contact they have with their offspring end up losing touch with them completely within two years.

The Government is aware that a whole host of social problems are made worse by the dismal way that “contact disputes” are handled by the courts. The statistics show that children deprived of one parent do less well at school, are more likely to end up on benefits, addicted to drugs, or involved in crime.

It’s pretty obvious that a basic goal of policy in this area ought to be to ensure that children have relationships with both their mother and their father. And yet there is nothing in the existing legislation which even encourages the courts to aim for that outcome. So they don’t. The absence of any such requirement is one reason why so many disputes spend years in court without resolution, and lead to the creation of new single-parent families.

A little-noticed provision in the Bill on families and children in the Queen’s Speech earlier this month could help to remedy that depressing situation. It proposes that both parents should have the right to a meaningful relationship with their children, and that the courts should recognise that right – subject to it being compatible with the safety of the child.

This is a momentous change, with the potential dramatically to improve the way the courts process child contact cases. But for reasons that aren’t clear, it generates enormous hostility.Related Articles

The Coalition was advised against it by the Norgrove Report, which the previous administration commissioned to examine ways of improving family law. Mr Norgrove insisted that evidence from Australia – which introduced legal provision for a “meaningful relationship” with both parents in 2006 – showed that the result was that children were placed in situations where they were at risk of violence. He also said it had led to more litigation.

His claims have been comprehensively demolished by Patrick Parkinson, an Australian professor of family law. Litigation on child custody cases in Australia did not go up: it went down by a third. And an examination of the evidence showed that Norgrove’s claim that the “meaningful relationship” provision had led to children being put at risk of violence was “without foundation”.

The Government is to be congratulated for having had the courage to ignore Norgrove and insert into the Bill a requirement that both parents should have a meaningful relationship with their children. It is an important start – but it is only a start. If a “meaningful relationship” is not itself defined, it will only become an opportunity for more arguments in court about what it means. The result will be that it means nothing, and so does nothing to improve the chances that both parties in a divorce retain secure ties with their children.

The definition does not need to be put into the new statute, and probably could not be. But it can and should be inserted into the guidance that will dictate how the family courts operate.

Norway has a simple default position in divorce cases: the absent parent gets to look after their children every other weekend. Many states in the US have the same sort of rule. Something similar could be introduced here. It would greatly diminish litigation, and increase the chances that children would have a relationship with both of their separated parents.

In opposition, the Conservatives promised to introduce directives that would help the family courts to produce fewer single-parent families. It will be a dreadful indictment of their performance in office if they fail.

Favourite Quotes

“The job of a father is this : to help his children develop, to teach them to express and master their emotions; to avoid physiological distress, to provide a context for their experiences; to help them persevere, reach their goals and take on responsibilities; and to instil the roles of citizen, partner and parent. In short, it is to fill their bellies with bread, their brains with wisdom and their hearts with love and courage.” Camil Bouchard, “On Father’s Ground” 2002.

Some men see things as they are and say, "Why?" I dream of things that never were and say, "Why not?" ~ George Bernard Shaw ~ also quoted by Robert F. Kennedy, US Senator and Presidential Candidate assassinated in 1968.

Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length. ~ Robert Frost

First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win. - Mahatma Gandhi

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Some Gems on relationships

Marriage is a relationship in which one person is always right, and the other is a husband.

The motto of this Father's Rights Activist

"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again ... and who, at the worst, if he fails at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat." Theodore Roosevelt,

Facts on violence in Canada Domestic and Otherwise

Family violence in Canada: A statistical profile, 2009.

Of the nearly 19 million Canadians who had a current or former spouse in 2009, 6.2% or 1.2 million reported they had been victimized physically or sexually by their partner or spouse during the five years prior to the survey. This proportion was stable from 2004 (6.6%), the last time the victimization survey was conducted, and down from 1999 (7.4%).

A similar proportion of men and women reported experiencing spousal violence during the five years prior to the survey. Among men, 6.0% or about 585,000, encountered spousal violence during this period, compared with 6.4% or 601,000 women.

Total 611, men 465, women 146Rate of homicides with firearms has increased 24% since 2002. Handgun use on increase (gangs don't register their weapons)Women victims 24% - lowest proportion everMen Victims 76%Both the rate of females killed (0.87 per 100,000 population), as well as the proportion(24%), were the lowest since 196162 spousal homicides - no change from 2007Lowest rate in 40 years45 women 17 (27.4%)men

Many DV homicides of men are not classified as such and this number is higher than 27.4%.

In 2009 based on a million couples it can fairly be said 999,998 wives do not kill their husbands and 999,995 husbands do not kill their wives. (See Pg. 15 chart modified from the rate per 100,000.)

In 2009, 49 women and 15 men were killed by a current or former spouse (excludes one same-sex spousal victim).

Total homicides 610, Men 450. Gang related 20.3 percent.69.1 % of firearm related deaths involved handgunsWomen 160, In 2009 it represented the second lowest proportion (26%) of female homicide victims since data were first collected. The rate of female victims has generally been declining since the late 1960s.

Profile

I am Politically active and right of centre on most issues with the odd exception such as legalization of "Mary Jane".
I advocate on changes to Family Law - an incredibly dysfunctional arena where parents are pitted against one another and children are the victims.
My picture will sometimes show me as a younger man simply because I like them.

An Alienated Child

Is a troubled child

American Coalition for Fathers & Children Petition

A quote by a well known Canadian Jurist

The Honorable Justice John Gomery of Canada stated, “Hatred is not an emotion that comes naturally to a child. It has to be taught. A parent who would teach a child to hate the other parent represents a grave and persistent danger to the mental and emotional health of that child.”

(The above quote arises from PSM vs. AJC, a decision rendered by Mr. Justice John Gomery on February 15 1991 (SCM 500-12-184613895), and confirmed by the unanimous judgment of the Court of Appeal on June 14 1991, the trial judge was confronted by a case involving four children caught up in a heated custody battle between their parents whereby the children became "catastrophically" alienated from their mother.)A good paper on PAS for lawyers by a lawyer, Anne-France Goldwater (Avocate), and excerpts from the above trial are located here.